Secrets untold
by Mr.Brainheart
Summary: Short stories each focussing on a different person living in the Mass Effect universe.


_Author's Note: This is something different from anything I have attempted before, since dialogue isn't a big part of it. It's a short story that I made in a spur of inspiration. I don't know if this will become a series, but if it will, I think I will try to focus the story on a different person each time. The main fic has priority, but this could be a nice side project. If you'd like to give feedback that's very welcome, I'd love to know what people actually think about it!_

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><p>All it takes to break oneself is to break a mirror. Shards of glass, the shattered remains of what once formed a pristine image of oneself, lay around me. More than that though, they had cut into me. Much like the puzzle of thoughts that lay inside of me, the fragments of a personality had cut into my world.<p>

Jonathan was what you would call gentle, he treated everything with care, thus he had never experienced the feeling of a broken an arm or leg, never been in a fight and never stepped on someone's toes so bad that he'd be hated. Jonathan tended to roll into the hands of luck and in the same manner he had rolled into reasonably respected jobs and earning a decent enough salary. He had a steady group of friends and a life he generally had in control. His friends envied exactly that aura around him that seemed to grant him luck throughout his life. That they envied almost as much as they were jealous of his ability not to brag about it. Behind his back though, they would imagine how his luck would run out one day and as seems inevitable the dices at one point stopped rolling in his favour. Whereas they had once happily fantasized about his misfortune they must have surely regretted it the day he had to go to the Citadel.

The Citadel: a place sprawling with life, the hub where all species meet, where power and control over a large area of space lay. It sounded like the perfect place for an adventurer, someone who wishes to know and experience the ins and outs of every part of life. It was unfortunate than that Jonathan wasn't an adventurer. He was perfectly happy on earth, sweet earth. Not that he was xenophobic, no, it was more a case of being darn scared of big changes. Nonetheless, he went, he had to go, because Jonathan was ambitious. Back home, climbing up the social ladder was considered important, at least, in his family it was and he had to face it: the job he had back on earth, military service, whilst perfectly respectable, didn't seem to get him anywhere. To get a free pass into C-sec was the perfect opportunity to get a few steps up that ladder, even though he'd have to start right at the bottom again.

C-sec wasn't the same as back home. C-sec was to him an insufferable pile of red tape that was only occasionally interchanged with a condescending view on humanity. Needless to say he came there as an outsider and he stayed as one. That's not saying he didn't try. He most certainly did try, but it was a different audience with different views and tastes. His attempts at bringing in some irony were misunderstood, his views on what the galaxy needed to become a better place, namely: a council representing _all_ races, one strictly controlled universal army and an Avina's with an ADHD function, were rejected and mocked.

Whilst losing hope to ever be accepted he told his fellow C-sec employees a joke one drunken night. Yes, drunk, even though Jonathan rarely ever drank alcohol, he was getting desperate and after opening his heart to a barman he decided to give Jonathan a little extra 'bite' in his drink, at least, such was his story when his Chief reprimanded him for it, since someone had reported it to him. Anyway, Jonathan sat in the little bar with a couple of Turians and, drunk as he was, he told them the joke of a Turian walking into a bar. Fitting enough he thought. Well, it turned out he was wrong, very wrong, and the Turians didn't take this kind to his jest. Acting as if they were offended, as they would, the self-righteous stick-in-the-muds, they walked off and sat down again a few tables further. Thus he had blown it: a simple joke caused him to gain a group of enemies, instead of friends.

The next weeks were slow and boring, his chances to climb the ladder anytime soon were crushed after that one little incident. That was not the worst of it though, if only it were. No, those slow and boring weeks seemed like a time of relaxing a few more weeks down the line. The changes were subtle, but Jonathan was sure he felt more bite, more spite in every word people uttered to him. Everyone seemed reluctant to even talk to him. He wondered whether he might have been going insane and wondered if it was all in his head, which even made him make an appointment at the consorts, foolish, since he was no person for something like that. In fact Jonathan started acting more and more out of character, spending most of his nights in bars. The guys from C-sec pointed at him, nudged each other when he walked passed, whispered to one another about him and anyone who spoke to him now seemed to find him despicable.

It drove him to the point that he got into his very first fight. On another drunken night, a few Turian C-sec 'Officers' walked up to him with the express intent to ridicule him, to challenge him. Jonathan snapped, like a twig being bend to far, he hit one of them, knocked one of the officers straight out. Bystanders would probably not have believed it if you had told them he had never been in a fight before, but it didn't matter how good at fighting he really was: Jonathan couldn't win from the two remaining officers. So those two-faced Turians had him locked up, accusing him of everything that had happened. He figured his job was over by now.

Thus Jonathan stood before his C-sec Chief, who was smug as can be when he started his little speech, one I'll never forget. I thought he was just going to sack Jonathan, worst case scenario right? Wrong, instead he uttered these words: "Jonathan, I know" there was a dramatic pause, a smile played around his lips, but it quickly faded away to make place for a stern disapproving look as he continued: "I know you're not real." He knew, he bloody knew. He knew me. But he wasn't done yet, no, he wanted me to be absolutely certain that he knew of it: "But I know someone who is real, do you know his name? Oh don't bother, I'll just tell you: Harkin. From the slums of earth he rose, no doubt out of the filthy muck, to later take on an alter-ego named Jonathan. You know, Harking, that story makes me sick." I would've torn that guy to shit if it weren't for the tears in my eyes. Jonathan was all I wanted to be, a solid, stable kinda guy. The slums are crap, no work, barely enough food, everyone ready to beat you up for being an outsider, that's what tore me up. I just wanted to be fucking happy. Harkin wasn't happy, Jonathan was. For a while he was at least. I never had a stable job at earth, but a friend with some cunning forgery skills gets you far. It gets you into the Alliance, they get you the 'great honour' of being the first human C-sec employee. Finally a chance, finally I thought I could be who I wanted to be: Jonathan, good ol' Jonathan.

But then the mirror starts showing cracks and smudges, that's when you should see it coming, but when I didn't. The small cracks keep on coming until the fragments part, the mirror shatters and only shows chaos whilst flying out of frame. That's when they start hitting things, hitting me. As if you weren't battered and bruised enough, shards cut you open, bleed out your warming thoughts, leaving the cold, leaving the cynical guy spending his nights at Chora's den drinking to forget the chances he had, the good times that could have been part of him, drinking away Jonathan.

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><p><em>P.S.: Suggestions for characters to write about are welcome and appreciated, since who knows, it might inspire me. Ofcourse I can't promise I will do something with the suggestion.<em>


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